The secondarticlesees John McCain selling TARP down the river. "They deceived the American people," McCain said. "They said it would go to address the housing issue, instead they gave it to the financial institutions."

Come again? I remember when McCain suspended the campaign to go back and work on TARP. I knew TARP was aimed at providing money to the banks. And I knew that because Hank Paulson said that. “The federal government must implement a program to remove these illiquid assets that are weighing down our financial institutions and threatening our economy," Paulson said in hisstatementexplaining the program. "I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative — a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion." You'll notice he did not say "a continuing series of foreclosures."

Either McCain didn't understand the program, which would be scary, or he's misrepresenting his understanding of the program, which would be sad. In the latter case, the excuse for both these panders is probably that JD Hayworth is running a primary against McCain in Arizona. Straight talk, it seems, is for presidential elections, not statewide primaries.